Pediatric researchers who tested newborn animals with an existing human drug used in adults with diabetes report that this drug, when given very early in life, prevents diabetes from developing in adult animals. If this finding can be repeated in humans, it may become a way to prevent at-risk infants from developing type 2 diabetes.
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With flu season just around the corner, scientists are reporting development of a new material for the fiber in face masks, air conditioning filters and air cleaning filters that captures influenza viruses before they can get into people's eyes, noses and mouths and cause infection. The report on the fiber appears in ACS' journal Biomacromolecules.
Concerns that global warming may have a domino effect —unleashing 600 billion tons of carbon in vast expanses of peat in the Northern hemisphere and accelerating warming to disastrous proportions — may be less justified than previously thought. That's the conclusion of a new study on the topic in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Each year about 3300 Australian men die of prostate cancer. It's Australia's second worst cancer killer for men, matching the impact of breast cancer on women.
Current therapies for prostate cancer include surgical removal of the prostate, radiation, freezing the tumour or cutting off the supply of the hormone testosterone—but there are often side-effects including incontinence and impotence.
Growing cells need an essential nutrient, the amino acid called leucine, which is pumped into the cell by specialised proteins. And this could be prostate cancer's weak link.
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researchers have developed new technology capable of removing radioactive material from contaminated water and aiding clean-up efforts following nuclear disasters.
The innovation could also solve the problem of how to clean up millions of tonnes of water contaminated by dangerous radioactive material and safely store the concentrated waste.
According to a new study by researchers from the MPI for Psycholinguistics and the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, you don't need to have words for emotions to understand them. The results of the study were published online on October 17 in Emotion, a journal of the American Psychological Association. The study provides new evidence that the perception of emotional signals is not driven by language, supporting the view that emotions constitute a set of biologically evolved mechanisms.
Age and body mass index (BMI)are important risk factors for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) particularly amongst South Asian and Black African women finds new research published today (02 November) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
The study looked at the link between maternal age, BMI and racial origin with the development of GDM and how they interact with each other.
MADISON – Cutting out short auto trips and replacing them with mass transit and active transport would yield major health benefits, according to a study just published in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The biggest health benefit was due to replacing half of the short trips with bicycle trips during the warmest six months of the year, saving about $3.8 billion per year from avoided mortality and reduced health care costs for conditions like obesity and heart disease.
Neurofibrillary tangles – odd, twisted clumps of protein found within nerve cells – are a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. The tangles, which were first identified in the early 1900s by German psychiatrist and neuropathologist Aloysius Alzheimer, are formed when changes in a protein called tau cause it to aggregate in an insoluble mass in the cytoplasm of cells.
Ann Arbor, Mich. -- A University of Michigan Health System laboratory study reveals a key trigger for producing normal red blood cells that could lead to a new treatment for those with sickle cell disease.
The study, conducted in mice, appears in this week's early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and holds promise for preventing the painful episodes and organ damage that are common complications of sickle cell disease.
A study published today in The Lancet shows how a do-it-yourself screen for cervical cancer could help prevent the disease in thousands of women who, for a number of reasons, cannot have a smear test.
The test, which detects the virus responsible for cervical cancer, was widely accepted by women in the trial and was more effective than the traditional smear test at picking up the earliest signs of the disease.
A new study by the University of Leeds is the first to prove that major roads significantly reduce bat numbers, activity and diversity – raising serious issues for how road construction projects mitigate their impact on these protected species.
The findings - published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology – show that the negative impact of a major road stretches a considerable distance, with bat activity three times lower at the roadside than 1.6km away. As bats are protected under UK and EU legislation, the research could have legal consequences for road builders.
Researchers have identified a potential drug therapy for a premature ageing disease that affects children causing them to age up to eight times as fast as the usual rate.
The study is the first to outline how to limit and repair DNA damage defects in cells and could provide a model for understanding processes that cause us to age.
The genetic predisposition to obesity due to the 'fat mass and obesity associated' (FTO) gene can be substantially reduced by living a physically active lifestyle according to new research by a large international collaboration, led by Ruth Loos from the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit, in Cambridge, UK, and published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The researchers found that the effect of the FTO gene on obesity risk is nearly 30% weaker among physically active than in physically inactive adults.
CHICAGO – Consumption of 3 to 6 alcoholic drinks per week is associated with a small increase in the risk of breast cancer, and consumption in both earlier and later adult life is also associated with an increased risk, according to a study in the November 2 issue of JAMA.